More dragon interactions

For some reason I got it into my head that I wanted to photograph black darters. Having found a mention of a site in Cumbria on a blog I was hoping to get a sunny day to go look for them. Then I read on a forum of a place much closer to home. When summer made another of it's brief visits I mowed the lawn then headed off to play with my new toy.

It was a steep climb up the steps through the wood, levelling off as I neared the summit. As soon as I climbed the final stile a dragonfly flew past along the track. Not a darter, but possibly an omen. Not knowing where I was going it took a while to find the area that should be home to the darters. As soon as I entered the part of the quarry which was most boggy I saw a couple of black darters. It turned out there were lots of them in the sheltered dip, females and immature males were lurking in the sedge, the mature males lurking round the edges on rocks and bilberry leaves. There were also plenty of emerald damsels to be seen and a few common blue damsels and  two or three hawkers over the pool itself.

I spent my time chasing the darters around, the males proving more elusive than the females. For the second time in less than a week I saw a darter fly into a spider's web, but this one managed to break free.

A lucky black darter that escaped the the web

At one point I counted fifteen black darters basking on a rock, with a few more on surrounding rocks. As I was wandering round one even landed on my shoulder!

Male black darter (background cleaned up)

There's another, larger, pool on site and that was where I went next. There wasn't much to be seen at first save a few damsels. Then I noticed hawkers prowling the marginal sedges. Working my way round the edge a disturbance on the water's surface caught my eye and there was a male common hawker struggling to break the grip of the water's meniscus. After taking a couple of photos I broke off a piece of sedge and poked it into the water and let the dragonfly take a hold. There had been a water boatman eyeing the hawker up when I first saw it, and another fell from it's body as I lifted it from the water. It doesn't take long for scavengers to find a potential meal. On close inspection I noticed the hawker was lacking most of one rear wing. I wonder if it was the loser in an inter-dragonfly fight?

Struggling common hawker

Rescued

Venturing across a wet overflow I looked around the other side of the pool where two hawkers were hunting over the heater and bilberries covering the high steep banks of the quarry. Another was searching the margins and turned out to be a female looking for egg laying sites. Easy enough to approach when actually ovipositing, but rarely in good view. The photo below being the best effort I managed.

Ovipositing common hawker

I looked at my watch and realised I'd stopped longer than I'd intended. The sun was still shining brightly as I made my way back down the hill. A proper August evening.

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The right gear for the job

After nipping in to town on Wednesday to chase up a lens I had on order I got an e-mail yesterday to say it had arrived. First thing this morning I went to collect it, then raced home to try it out. Right on cue the rain stopped and I got down and dirty shooting some ants. Too mobile for me! Looking round the back of the garage I found a damp and cold butterfly which proved to be a patient model for me to practice on. It was low to the ground which made life difficult and the results weren't perfect.

First effort with the new lens

After lunch I had an errand to run, taking the camera along as I planned to wander round a local nature reserve looking for small things to photograph on my way home. Before that I tried the lens out as a simple telephoto and found it pretty darned good.

Headlight reflections

At the reserve I kept my eyes on the ground at the side of the path on the lookout for fungi, of which there were plenty, but most either chewed or past their best. It was good practice which made me think that a simple reflector to use opposite an off-camera flash might be useful for fungi shots under the tree canopy.

Some toadstools

Always thinking of images I tried to capture some of cricketers practising before a village match. Some almost worked.

Bales and bails

As I was chasing a ladybird round a plant the rain came back and having no jacket and nothing to keep the camera dry I raced back to the car and home having started to get the hang of the lens. On the PC the results are quality of the images is pretty impressive, even if the pictures aren't yet. It certainly looks to do a better job of the close-up stuff than my 70-300 - it focuses faster and with less noise too.

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Wet bum, wet knees, wet feet...

On Tuesday evening the weather pattern followed the recent trend of dull and wet in the morning with fitful sunshine in the afternoon and evening. After tea I found myself drawn to the saltmarsh in search of meadow pipits. Sure enough they were still there. A group flew up and hung on the wind coming off the sea and a couple perched on the fence posts. I grabbed a shot or two to kick off then tried stalking them. I got reasonably close before deciding to sit and wait for them. The marsh lived up to its name and was wet. I soon found my backside getting damp. I shuffled around wishing I'd put my waterproofs on. But one of the pipits came close so I wasn't bothered and knew I'd soon dry out.

Posing pipit

An hour was enough with the pipits and I battled my way back through the sedge and drove to look for barn owls. For the second time the owl was  no-show.


Wednesday lunchtime saw me dashing out, camera in hand, to photograph a young hedgehog that was on a mission. Once more the angle viewfinder came in handy. If I'd had the lawnmower out recently I might have got some better shots! As it was I'd forgotten there'd been rain and my knees got damp in the long wet grass.

Peekaboo

Thursday afternoon was free, the sun was shining, and I thought I'd go look for the darters I had been told about. Not yer average darters you understand. True to form the sun went into hiding when I got there. I did see a male common darter, which always seem to be well outnumbered by females when I'm out and about, but could get close enough for a good shot. Circling the pond for the third time a female common darter flew ahead of me into the reeds in the pond margin where it came to a sticky stop in a spider's web.

Trapped

Seeing the darter's peril I snapped a shot and was about to lean out and free it when the web's spinner arrived on the scene so I let nature take its course. Watching the spider deal with the much larger dragonfly was fascinating. At first the dragonfly struggled, but within a very short time it's wings were bound and maybe it was paralysed by venom.

The web snapped at one extreme and the dragonfly swung down, where the spider made some kind of winch mechanism and hoisted it higher to a point where it appeared to bind it to the stem it was strung from. Then it looked to start dining. In order to get some real close ups with the Raynox on the lens I took a step or two too far and ended up with soaked feet. I think it was worth it.

Dinner for one

Butterflies are still around, but the dragonflies need more sunshine to get them on the wing. There were some fungi around now that autumn is approaching. A few leaves already falling from the trees and blackberries ripening on the brambles.

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Yet more dragons

With the test match wrapped up early and the sun shining fitfully I thought a dragon hint was in order, planning a circular route. The first stop-off point was the old pond. Again there were brown hawkers hawking and common darters aplenty. The hawkers wouldn't settle and the darters all kept too low to make for pleasing photos - the background being too cluttered. I made an effort then left for the dragonfly pond.

There wasn't much to be seen at first, just a few damsels and some darters disturbed as I walked round the pond. When the sun shone warmly the darters were more evident, two or three being seen in places where the grass was flattened by the feet of dragonfly enthusiasts. Hawkers appeared around the shrubs bordering the grass surrounding the pond and emperors over the water. I almost stalked a hawker that I saw land on a tree. But I lost sight of it, made a false move and spooked it.

The darters were more approachable and I managed to get close to one perching on the top of the seedhead of a plant.

Another photographer had arrived and dropped lucky to have an emperor settle on some sedges at the pond's edge. Just out of range for me though. I decided on a move but was stopped by the sight of a hawker ovipositing at the opposite end of the pond. I was making my way towards it when one of the emperors spotted it too and harassed it. The hawker moved further round the pond to an inaccessible spot. I decided to try some flight shots of the patrolling emperor.

As usual I switched to manual focus and tried firing off quick bursts as it passed by me. This proved as unsuccessful as usual. I swapped my 70-300 Sigma to the 18-200 Nikkor which has proved good, if a little short, for photographing flying birds. This worked slightly better, although the results needed more cropping than with the 70-300.

While taking the flight shots I heard a clash of dragonfly wings and saw two emperors battling on the surface of the pond. I was too slow to get a shot of the two together, but managed some blurred shots of the beaten male struggling to free itself from the water.

Struggling

Free!

After this I spent some time watching a brown hawker hoping it would land somewhere, but it didn't. Then the other guy called me over to look at a broad-bodied chaser he'd found basking on a wall.

Spot the dragonfly

There was a ditch between the wall and the path which I was told was a steep drop through the undergrowth. So we both made the best we could of leaning over the nettles. The chap told me of another pond on the site that was home to a couple of species that the dragonfly pond itself doesn't harbour. One to look at another day. He had to make tracks, so when he'd gone I took a chance. Sure enough the ditch was less precipitous than I'd been told. And I was able to get close enough to fill the frame.

Broad-bodied chaser

I chanced a circuit of the new pond, without seeing the species I' been told about, but there was a hawker about and some damsels. Certainly worth another look. The last port of call was the litter pit, but by the time I got there the day had gone off and my stay was short.

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Owl and about

I set out to look for the barn owl again following my butterfly afternoon. I took a different route to the usual one, and missed a turning. The road lead to the second place I'd seen the owl from, so it wasn't all bad. As I approached the turn in the road by the gate I was amazed to see a fallow buck grazing in one of the owl's fields. Luckily there was no traffic behind me as I slammed on and pulled into the field gateway. I fired off a couple of record shots from the car window then got out, fully expecting the deer to flee.

Young buck

It looked at me then went on grazing for a while and I got some more shots from the gate. The deer trotted off after a while so I wandered up the road in the direction it had headed to see if I could get another glimpse of it. That was when I spooked a little owl which few into a tree on the other side of the road. There was a rabbit grazing in a paddock and a kestrel flew overhead. Then the owl left the tree by the road and sought cover in a large willow. I'd walked less than fifty yards!

Disappearing owl

The deer hadn't gone anywhere I could see from the road so I went back and entered the field, which has a public footpath through it. I got to the place where the deer had been, looked to my right across a ditch and...

Surprised!

I had to zoom OUT to get all of it's antlers in the frame! I got some more head shots before it wandered off and watched me from over a fence before commencing grazing in an onion field.
Then I took the back lanes to go looking for the barn owl. On the way I stopped off for a corn bunting opportunity. Quite approachable birds that they are, too.

Back on it's perch

Down the lane that leads to the owl fields there were more birds, including a mistle thrush, reed buntings and skylarks. The barn owl failed to show up. Not that I was complaining after getting so close to the deer.

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